This is the second installment of WorkLife Research’s annual report on the current state of employee hiring and retention. To read about the most effective strategies for retaining a skilled workforce, check out the first part of this series.
Amid an ever-changing talent landscape, incorporating the most effective hiring practices is important for companies aiming to build strong teams of employees. And, with changes to salary transparency laws, health care benefits and DEI policies becoming a possibility following the U.S. presidential election, today’s employers have to have an understanding of what motivates candidates to apply and, eventually, accept a job offer.
The recruitment process can be lengthy for both employers and potential candidates. For companies, having dependable candidate-sourcing tools and a thoughtful interview process in place can make it easier to find quality new hires. Likewise, candidates know that the recruitment process can often show how they can expect to be treated if they choose to accept a new role.
“Yes, it’s important that you have the technological solutions, but companies need to actually look at how they interview and how they treat candidates through the process to get people through the door,” said Eric Mochnacz, director of operations at Red Clover, a human resources consulting firm.
In this second installment of WorkLife Research’s annual report, we’ll look into HR professionals’ most effective hiring strategies to fill open roles within their organizations. This includes the top sources they turn to for recruiting candidates, how to make open roles appealing to applicants and whether higher compensation is required to fill vacated positions.
Methodology
To better understand the policies affecting employee retention and hiring, WorkLife surveyed 123 HR professionals who work in internal operations or talent acquisition. We asked what policies most affect employee retention and the most common reasons employees leave their companies. We also asked how HR pros measure employee satisfaction and find job candidates for open positions.
Additionally, HR experts shared their insights in sit-down interviews with our research team to further delve into the way companies retain a skilled workforce, find qualified candidates for open roles and ensure workers receive proper compensation.
Where HR pros are finding candidates to fill open roles
According to the HR professionals WorkLife surveyed, job search websites and referrals from current employees are the top sources from which companies fill open roles. Nearly a third of respondents (31%) said they find most of the candidates they end up hiring via professional networking site LinkedIn.
Within the past year, LinkedIn has made significant changes to its algorithm including job search functions, and the platform has leaned into a pay-to-play business model. Now, when more than 25 candidates apply for a job, companies must pay to promote that open role. This makes LinkedIn a more expensive platform for smaller companies and startups in particular when it comes to hiring.
“We know that LinkedIn is necessary, but it is extremely expensive, so that is the downside,” said Rebecca Trotsky, chief people officer at HR Acuity. “It’s a necessary evil. You have to be there. That’s where the candidates are.”
However, some of the HR pros WorkLife spoke with said that, while LinkedIn is a useful tool for casting a wide candidate net, it often isn’t as helpful for finding qualified applicants for niche business areas. The trouble, they said, comes when job hunters continually click on LinkedIn’s “easy apply” feature to submit their resumes for a multitude of roles, rather than applying only to select positions.
“My team will head hunt and candidate source, as well as go through the selection and recruitment process, and LinkedIn is the main tool that they’ll use,” said Nebel Crowhurst, chief people officer at global employee engagement company Reward Gateway. “When you’re looking for a niche role or a specific skill set, you might use a job board that’s specific for that particular area of expertise. And what continues to grow is networking and recommendations.”
That may be why WorkLife’s survey results showed that some companies are putting a significant emphasis on hiring methods outside of LinkedIn to find qualified job candidates, such as internal referrals from current employees.
Case in point: Exactly one-quarter of survey respondents (25%) said that they find most of the candidates they hire through referrals from current employees.
According to Trotsky, when a company’s workers are happy in their roles and with how the company treats them, those employees will often refer job candidates from their personal networks whom they’ve told about their positive work experiences. “If you have a workforce that trusts you and knows that even when things go wrong, you’re going to have their back and you’re going to take care of the situation and be fair and ethical and follow consistent processes, they will tell their friends that they should come and work for the organization,” Trotsky said.
“Employee referrals are awesome,” said Ray Martinelli, chief people officer at content management platform Contentful. “If you have a great culture and a lot of positive momentum in the company, employees are going to step up and want to refer people. What better way than to get a referral from somebody that is working at the company, that knows a culture and that has a stake in it.”
Other methods of searching for job candidates that might be considered more traditional also still carry weight for HR pros. Twenty-one percent of respondents to WorkLife’s survey said sector-specific job boards help them find most of the candidates they end up hiring. Another 14% of respondents said the same about relying on recruiters to search for job candidates.
Methods like these can help businesses find job candidates who aren’t necessarily actively looking for a new role on LinkedIn or other job search sites, according to Jamie Kohn, senior director of research in the Gartner HR Practice. “A lot of organizations are trying to think about other ways to access candidates who aren’t on [LinkedIn],” Kohn said. “Some are even going back to flyers in grocery stores and things like that.”
“[On LinkedIn] you get candidates that are looking for jobs, and that certainly works,” Martinelli added. “But, what you also need to have is really strong in-house recruiting, where they’ll use other platforms to go out and proactively look for the passive candidates that may not be looking [for jobs]. Those are the [candidates] you also want to make sure you’re getting — the talent that may not be looking but may be great for the company.”
The smallest percentage of respondents in WorkLife’s survey (9%) said they use job search engine and hiring platform Indeed to find most of the candidates they end up hiring. “We actually shifted back to Indeed, which we weren’t a big fan of for a long time,” Red Clover’s Mochnacz said. “But job seekers are still using Indeed.”
How employers make open roles appeal to job seekers
Not only does offering work-from-home flexibility and traditional employee benefits help companies retain current employees, as seen in the first installment of this report series, but it also helps businesses entice job candidates to apply for open roles. According to WorkLife’s survey, over a third of respondents (36%) said work-from-home flexibility is the policy that has the most positive impact on hiring, other than salary compensation which was excluded from our answer set.
According to research firm Gartner’s Voice of the Candidate survey from Q3 2024, companies issuing return-to-office mandates sparked some employees to search for new jobs. One in four employees who were asked to return to a physical workplace said that request influenced their decision to leave their job, and one in five who suspected they would be asked to return to a physical workplace said the same.
Over a quarter of respondents (27%) said traditional employee benefits have the most positive impact on hiring. “I try to make people happy with the health care coverage,” explained Adam Russo, CEO at The Phia Group, a health care cost consulting and legal service firm that offers free health insurance to all of its employees. “CFOs and HR departments do not spend enough time on health benefits [and other] employee benefits.”
“Every year, all employers do is increase co-pays, increase deductibles and increase out of pockets. We take the opposite approach,” Russo said. “We find ways to make [health care] more affordable, more accessible and higher quality. That alone creates a dynamic morale boost within the organization where employees know if they need a surgery, they’re all set — their bill is going to be covered.”
It’s important for companies that are seeking new employees to strike a balance between offering a compelling salary and flexible benefits, according to Reward Gateway’s Crowhurst. “Try to understand what does your workforce actually want and need,” Crowhurst said. “What’s the sort of shape and demographic of your workforce, and what does that mean in terms of the requirements of flexibility? And then what does your business do, and what can it sustain in terms of flexibility?”
Today’s jobseekers are more selective about where they choose to apply and also which jobs they’re willing to accept, depending on the employee benefits and hybrid workplace flexibility potential employers offer, according to Gartner’s study. The number of candidates accepting a job offer is at the lowest it’s been since the first quarter of 2023, with only 52% accepting their offers, according to Gardner’s third-quarter survey.
For instance, with hundreds of bills that threaten LGBTQ+ protections introduced into state legislatures over the last year, members of the LGBTQ+ community do not feel comfortable applying at companies based in those states. “There’s a strong portion of the LGBTQ+ community that do not want to work for employers who do not offer inclusive benefits, and now added into the equation, do not want to work for employers who are located in places where they may not be feeling safe,” said Scott Dobroski, vp of corporate communications at Indeed and a self-described member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Some employers are responding to these needs by offering inclusive benefits, which they highlight for applicants in job postings and throughout the hiring process. A July analysis of job postings by Indeed found that 59% of job postings on the site advertised at least one employer-provided benefit, up from fewer than 40% in early 2020.
HR pros weigh economics and wage laws when hiring for vacated roles
WorkLife asked HR professionals how much of a compensation increase they expect to offer new hires when hiring to fill a position after an employee leaves a company. Over a third of respondents to WorkLife’s survey (36%) said that they expect to offer a salary increase between 1% and 10% when hiring for a position vacated by a former employee. However, just under a third of respondents (31%) said that they don’t expect to offer any increase in salary.
WorkLife’s survey results are indicative of factors such as economic changes like inflation and shifting market standards for things like wages and benefits — all of which HR pros and their companies have to take into account when hiring for open roles.
“It wouldn’t be uncommon that someone that you hired five years ago who leaves, then potentially the starting salary may actually be higher, mainly because the market has changed, and other people in that position who are still there or are at that same salary band have ultimately benefited from salary increases over time,” Red Clover’s Mochnacz said.
Additionally, conversations around pay transparency have become more normalized in the workplace, according to Reward Gateway’s Crowhurst. “Although we have an expectation that your personal salary is confidential to you, let’s be realistic. People talk about this stuff,” Crowhurst said. “Things get shared, and people find stuff out. It’s really important that you have a pay strategy that enables equity in pay across the business.”
Salary transparency laws passed in recent years are another potential factor among the survey respondents who said they expect to increase compensation when hiring for vacated roles. These laws now require employers in many states to disclose pay ranges in open job postings. According to Gartner’s Q3 2024 study, 40% of candidates received job offers with salaries starting in the middle of a posted pay range. Thirty-six percent of candidates received offers at or above the top of posted pay ranges.
All in all, it’s important for employers to be transparent in job descriptions about the salary and benefits a candidate can expect to receive because it’s often indicative of how a future employee can expect to be treated after they’re hired, according to Crowhurst.
“We’re always trying to make sure that how we present ourselves in our career site and recruiting material shows diversity in the business,” Crowhust said. “So, people feel like this is the kind of business I want to apply for because I can identify and feel like I would belong in that environment.”